Zahra Rajabi, Refugee Rights Advocate, Assassinated in Turkey

Mrs. Zahra Rajabi, also known as Faezeh -- a member of the PMOI leadership council and a member of the NCRI -- was born in Tehran in 1957. She started her political activities during the Shah’s time in 1977 when she was a university student.In 1991, Mrs. Rajabi was assigned to chair the central office of the PMOI’s political section abroad. While in Germany, she was the target of an assassination attempt by Tehran’s terrorists in 1992. Due to her responsibility, Mrs. Rajabi used to travel to Turkey in order to see to the deplorable situation of the Iranian refugees there. The last time she flew to Turkey was in February 1996 when she led an NCRI delegation. Once the MOIS gathered enough information about Mrs. Rajabi’s journeys to and from Turkey, it put two plans on its agenda; the first plan was to kidnap her and the second was to assassinate her. The diplomat terrorists stationed in the Iranian embassy in Ankara and the consulate in Istanbul were assigned to carry out the plot. The local agents working for the Iranian regime helped them. The abduction plan failed and the assassination plan was to be done. And it was on Tuesday, February 20, 1996 when she and a PMOI supporter, Abdul Ali Moradi were cowardly assassinated by the Iranian regime’s diplomat terrorists.As soon as Istanbul’s District Attorney Salim Oloush saw the slain victims, he commented: “This is a political assassination and the Iranian secret services might have killed them.”

The RAND National Defense Research Institute published in July 2009 the report The Mujahedin-e Khalq: A Policy Conundrum for the Multi-National Force-Iraq, Task Force 134 (Detainee Operations). The report focuses on the circumstances surrounding the detention of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MeK) at Camp Ashraf and “whether MeK members were taken into custody…